This is totally premature since my wedding (1/21/17) is still a ways away but I thought starting now would enable me to stay organized throughout the process. So here goes nothing:

Engagement:

My fiance and I met online at match.com and our first date was January 15,2015. He is an adorably sweet man and I couldn't be luckier to have found him . He proposed on January 13, 2016. It was a total surprise and he did it at the local pup where we had our first date at the same table we sat at the first time we met. He decorated with rose petals and personal photos of us. After the proposal, all of our family and friends came in and surprised me. It was perfect.

The ring:

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My FI picked my dream ring, classic white gold tiffany's style six prong solitaire diamond. He found a local jeweler that made it and it's perfect but I'm bias obviously .

We decided on a destination wedding because most of my fiance's family is located in Canada and we've also both always dreamed of a beachy wedding. We found destinationweddings.com and then had a couple of friends that are travel agents compare the rates they were quoting us. Both of our friends said that they were unable to find us anything cheaper than what we were being quoted so we went with Sharon Fein at destinationweddings.com and figured out that Azul Sensatori was the perfect place for us! So far, we've been pleased with services from both of these vendors and my family/friends that have booked have only had nice things to say as well.

My colors are blush and gold and we luckily were upgraded at no extra cost to the Sky Deck for our ceremony cause they double booked us by accident! It's at 6pm though so we will have to do pictures beforehand. We have chosen to go with outside vendor, Jasmin and Matt photography for our wedding photos. We have also been very pleased with them so far! We chose the 8 hour package for 2500.

Our bridal party includes 1 MOH, 1 Best Man, 4 bridesmaids, and 4 groomsman. We are praying that everyone is able to make it or else that number might change.

First thing I started with were the SAVE THE DATES because we wanted to get these out ASAP as it was very important to me to give everyone a year's notice. I sent these out at the end of January 2016. My Mom helped me with the design, they were printed at Staples, front and back, on ivory shimmer cardstock sheets from Michaels that we cut into rectangles. I'm unsure of the exact size. We also bought some gold cardstock and a paper airplane shape cutout tool from amazon to make paper airplane shapes to put in the envelope. Envelopes were ivory bought from Michaels. I used clear address labels for return and sending addresses. I also put my return address on the front upper left corner rather than on the back. We also included a gold circular label seal that my mom designed as an envelope closure. Here are some pictures:

And here's the final lay out front and back: (Sorry I do not have a picture of them printed on the shimmery ivory paper)

After the save the dates were done, I moved onto putting together DIY bridesmaids proposal boxes:

I got wooden craft boxes from Michaels and spray painted them gold with a clear acrylic spray after, inside they were painted pale pink with Martha Stewart paints. Including in the boxes were: mini frames for pictures of me with each BM, a pink bottle of champagne, an info packet, and a card. All of this was put into the box with some ivory crinkle paper from Michaels. Also on the front, I super glued a gold glittery initial of each of their first names. Here are way too many pictures:

The info packets were 5 square pages printed out on the same ivory shimmer cardstock as the save the dates. The page above was the Your Role page, each one was structured like this with the same fonts. I had an "Our Day", "Your Role", "Travel Info", "My Girls", and "Your Dress" pages. All had a hole punched in the upper corner with a burlap rope string tied in a bow through it.

When they opened the boxes, there was card sitting on top of the gifts with their name painted in gold marker on the right side vertically. Sorry I don't have photos of them printed I printed on ivory precut cards from Michaels. Here is the front below, obviously ignore the black typing line, that wasn't printed out. Back side I painted over the typed text with a gold paint marker from Michaels and that is also below:

One of my bridesmaids lived out of state so I shipped hers through USPS and delivered one to my FI's sister all in the same week. That weekend, I had the other bridesmaids and I meet for a fun brunch where they opened theirs. Here is a final picture if you can see past all the mimosas :

Okay, well that's all I've got for now! My biggest things are that I want my guests/bridesmaids to feel very very appreciated so I'm putting a lot of thought into gifts etc. Only big struggle is staying under budget with as generous as I want to be. It appears, I will likely be cutting decor to cut costs and bringing as much of my own as I can. Right now, I'm trying to plan out invitations and will post as soon as those are sent as well as bridesmaids dresses chosen. Thanks guys! And best of luck and congratulations to all the brides out there!

Also, one more thing! My MOH surprised with a gorgeous engagement gift, it was a handpainted engagement ring portrait of my ring with my future last name below it . It was made by a very talented local artist. Here is a blog with some examples of her engagement ring portraits: http://jessie-kuruc....ring-paintings/

She also has an etsy store and provides a lot of other needed wedding items. Happy planning ladies!!!

Congrats! I started my planning thread almost a year in advance, so you are not super early it's great you have selected the resort. I found that to be the most difficult thing in the entire process. Good luck and looking Forward to updates.

Congrats! My wedding day is January 21, 2017 as well but at the Grand Sirenis Riviera Maya! I'm already full force planning so I don't think you're early at all and have been writing my planning thread since January lol.

Sorry guys! For some reason, my images are not showing up in my original post and I cannot figure out how to edit so here is the album and links to individual pictures. Also located in my gallery/media and open to view. Thanks and happy planning!

Back to the planning thread after many months off! Now I'm 108 days away and getting very serious about getting everything done . I'm happy to say that I have FINALLY found my wedding hairstyle! It's so hard to find multiple angles of these inspiration styles online making it hard to make a final decision but I tracked the photo down to the original stylist and found multiple angles on her site. Woohoo! Here's some photos for inspiration to anyone else: 227.jpg70.25KB4 downloads232.jpg42.34KB4 downloadsVintage-navy-and-pink-wedding-inspiration-16.jpg312.8KB4 downloadsVintage-navy-and-pink-wedding-inspiration-17.jpg305.22KB4 downloads